Discussion

Chung Viet - Deptford High St. - Best Vietnamese I've had in London so far!

On a whim, a friend and I decided to have dinner tonight at Chung Viet, which is just north of the Deptford Rail Station. It's a hole-in-the-wall place, and the cook (and owner?) are North Vietnamese, which was explained to me when I asked why they didn't have banh xeo on the menu. I'm not super familiar with differences between Northern and Southern Vietnamese food, but there were some differences I noticed in preparation of some dishes we ordered, and it seems like there are some interesting things to explore on the menu (especially on Fridays, when more specials are available).

At first, based on appearances, I didn't have high hopes for the food, but the meal turned out to be excellent. This is only the 4th place I've had Vietnamese food in London, but it blew all the others out of the water in terms of taste and value.

Stir fried beef w/ vermicelli was delicious - served w/ sweet/sour/fish sauce on the side, which we poured on the noodles. The beef was flavorful, and there were bits of both basil and a lemon-tasting herb (lemon basil? kinh gioi?), along with peanuts, bean sprouts, fried shallots.

Chicken salad was also very good, and different than versions I've had in San Francisco. No cabbage or lettuce - instead, there were cucumber slices, shredded onion, carrot, and what looked like baby lotus roots (but maybe they were something else? - they almost seemed like they came from a can?). Also lots of shredded chicken, mint, basil, peanuts, all in a delicious dressing which tasted like it had a hint of sesame oil, in addition to sugar vinegar and a bit of fish sauce. In some ways the flavors here were similar to Vietnamese chicken salads I'd had in SF, but I think the dressing made it taste a bit different too).

Pho w/ rare beef - Pretty standard presentation (bean sprouts, basil, chili, lemon on the side), with nice portion of rare beef. Noodles were slightly overcooked, but not bad. Broth was excellent. I was pretty positive about the broth at Nam, which I tried the other night (see here: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663115) but the broth at Chung Viet was so much better that it's kind of laughable to even compare them. Perfectly salted, rich beef flavor, nice spicing - tasted as good as any pho I had in SF (my favorite there was Turtle Tower

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Portions were big. Prices were very reasonable. With a pot of green tea and way more than enough food for two, the total bill came to £20.

Again, it's a hole-in-the-wall, and the bathrooms were far from pretty, but the food here definitely seems to be made by people who know what they are doing. I am feeling quite optimistic lately about all the great chow-worthy places in London. This morning I didn't even know that Deptford existed (let alone that it had several Vietnamese restaurants). I will probably try to go back soon, perhaps to try a banh mi sandwich which I also saw on the menu!

Great cha nem - substantial spring rolls with a thick blistery shell. Very savoury, lots of garlic amid the minced pork and chopped black fungus. Served with shredded lettuce, mint, Vietnamese shiso and perhaps basil, for an excellent herbal bite that cuts nicely into the meaty flavours. Also wit the standard nuoc cham/sweet dipping sauce. Probably the best rendition I've had in London so far.

Bun/rice vermicelli with grilled pork slices was also good. Tender tasty pork, with a bit of lemongrass in the finish, along with the same herb/lettuce combination as the cha nem.

Nice to have a big pile of chopped red chilli for reinforcements.

P.S. there are a few additional Vietnamese places and a couple of African places within a few blocks -- anyone been?

I had the Goat pepper stew which literally stripped off my tastebuds. I also had the Jollof rice, it's not bad, but I've had better, saying that I haven't had much Nigerian food! I do like 4T4 in Camberwell.

Wow! As soon as it said "not suitable for foreigner" I was excited. I don't think I've ever elt queasy about any food ever (I've eaten most things). But this shocked me! I'm not sure if I would want it either. Cold raw duck blood! Hmm, I'm tempted.

Actually cooked duck's blood is very nice and I've eaten it a number of times. But raw!?!

Unfortunately not. I've only had duck's blood in China. Some claypot dishes thickened with it, some pots with slices or cubes floating inside. They've all been pretty nice. That sauce made with liver and blood sounds fantastic. I'm going to look out for that. But unfortunately, I don't know where you'd find it in London.

Limster, there is the dish "Canard à la Presse" which I had at the Tour d'Argent in Paris (it is there signature dish). Here they drain the blood, partially roast it, remove the legs, breast and liver, then press/crush the carcass to extract as much blood/juice as possible. The liver and blood is then added to the pressed juices to thicken the sauce. Which is then used to finish off the roasted meat.

I believe it is also called Canard à la Rouennaise but I not certain if this requires the press, if it does it is likely to be rare in London. Maybe easier to find a place doing "jugged hare" in the game season as that is the traditional English dish with a blood sauce (and of course there is black pudding).

I had a superb version of this dish at Beffroy in Rouen nearly a decade ago (I suspect it is now closed, the chef was somewhat old even then), and it was called canard a la rouennaise on the menu. Sauce was rich and very oily (nearly 50% oil, hence the emulsion), and the small duck (duckling?) was served rare. Not sure if a press was involved, certainly didn't have it pressed tableside. Was described as a traditional speciality that originates in Rouen/Normandy (hence the name); perhaps Tour d'Argent's is the same dish with a different name or related dish that diverged (afterall, regional dishes in France tend to exploit/rely on regional breeds of animals). Had read in the NY Times that it was served at Ducasse's NY restaurant several years ago (also going by a la rouennaise); was actually curious if Ducasse here serves it and if so, good or bad.

Yet to check out the Portuguese places in Stockwell, but chicken stewed in its own blood is a common Portuguese dish, was wondering if anyone with a thorough knowledge of (the somewhat underexplored) Portuguese scene has seen the dish.

Spring rolls with pork - #7 on the menu - Northern Vietnamese style, the wrappers were more like fresh rice noodles than rice paper wrappers used in most Vietnamese fresh spring rolls. Served warm, filled w/ ground pork, topped with crispy fried garlic and shallots, and served with a very nice dipping sauce. See 1st picture.

Dried beef salad - Strips of dried beef (like Vietnamese beef jerky), carrots, daikon, various herbs in a fish sauce/vinegar dressing. Bits of red chili made it quite spicy. I didn't like this as much as the chicken salad I had last time, but it was quite nice and different flavorwise - the dressing seemed to be fish sauce/citrus based, more like Thai salads I've had before. See 2nd picture (it's a bit blurry)

Duck with vermicelli and soup - This was nice, but nothing too special. Boiled duck was slightly tough, noodles were fine, broth was decent - I think it was chicken broth. Topped with what I think were shredded mushrooms, which were chewy but didn't taste like much. Served with mixed herbs, lemon, chili

Pot of green tea costs £1.

Total bill for all the food (again, far too much for 2 people) was £21. Probably wouldn't bother ordering the duck again, especially with such a nice beef pho on the menu. Would still like to try the pho ga, and the crispy spring rolls. Would also probably be helpful to have a Vietnamese speaker further determine what other N. Vietnamese specialties they could make.

I think Nom actually just means salad in Vietnamese. But in Hanoi (as well as in Bodega Bistro in San Francisco) the one I had was with green papaya and dried beef (along with herbs, chili, peanuts, etc).

Shekha and I made our first trip down there yesterday and I'm still slightly full from it. Crispy spring rolls were excellent, while chicken salad came out in a form that seemed 110% different to what others got. Ours was packed into rice dough packets (think Korean BBQ lettuce wraps but with something akin to the pancakes you get with Beijing duck) and it was really quite flavorless.

Bun came with excellent grilled pork, but getting any of the extras that come standard with Vietnamese noodle dishes was effort. The best I managed was some crispy shallots before I was told that they had no chillies... only to see others get red chillies with their stuff.

The banh mi was actually reeeeally good for 3 quid. Nice bread, served hot, and packed with Vietnamese pork pate. They also served two very good Vietnamese coffees.

Everything was good, but I get the feeling that it was a bit of an off day. The staff seemed entirely different from the above posts (all waitresses, no waiter, no English speaking cook to help with ordering, etc.) Still the best Vietnamese I've had in London as is, though.

We just got back from a dinner there. We were a motley crew: 1 reluctant fish eating vegetarian, 1 infrequent meat eaters who will eat sea food, and one who wont eat seafood or chicken, and 1 who doesnt really eat pork. We arrived just at 9pm and were the only customers. It turned out to be too late for them to get a fish from the market (down the street). Also, they were out of buon quon chay which was saddening. Our waiter was a friendly guy with ok English. In the end we ordered the stir fried beef on rice vermicelli, lotus stem salad, some steamed greens (we asked especially for this) and some singapore noodles and fried rice for the vegetarian. The lotus stem salad was phenomenal. My husband and I had actually walked to Deptford from Stoke Newington, and will do so again for that salad. The beef w bun was ok; the beef was quite tasty, as were the shiso leaves, but we ended up saucing it with the leftover dressing from the salad. The ratio of noodles to veg seemed a bit high. Our greens (straw greens is how I order them at other vietnamese restos) were quite nice, dressed w fish sauce and lemon. The noodles and rice were utterly forgettable.

After we had finished eating THE KITCHEN CAUGHT ON FIRE. It was a rather harrowing few minutes, but it was put out without using the extinguisher. Nobody was hurt, and after the smoke had cleared, everybody calmed down. I'm sure it wont interfere from them opening tomorrow.

It was nice. My guess is sugar, fish sauce, water, garlic, chili pepper. Maybe some lime juice? Also, the salad had lots of fresh mint, so that infused it as well. It was orange in colour which was probably juice from the shredded carrot.